City worker, 44, searched for 'shaken baby syndrome' on her phone six days before murdering her four week-old daughter with her Lithuanian lover, court hears

Clare Sanders, 44, searched for 'shaken baby syndrome' just days before she murdered her four-week-old daughter

A city worker searched for 'shaken baby syndrome' just days before she murdered her four-week-old daughter with her Lithuanian lover, a court heard. 

Clare Sanders, 44, a financial consultant, and boyfriend Tomas Vaitkevicius, 45, allegedly shook tiny Eva on three separate occasions.

Sanders' mobile phone had been used to search 'Shaken baby syndrome NHS', 'Shaking babies' and 'baby is shaking' on 27 August, 2017.

This was six days before Eva's death, the Old Bailey heard.

Sanders and Vaitkevicius, from Mitcham, both deny murder and an alternative count of causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable child.

Shortly before 2.40am on 1 September a call was made to the London Ambulance Service by a neighbour living in the same block of flats in Mitcham, south London.  

Eva was rushed to St George's Hospital, Tooting, as paramedics tried to treat her but was pronounced dead shortly before 7am on September 2, 2017. 

Tomas Vaitkevicius, 45, denies murder and the alternative charge of allowing the death of a vulnerable child

A post-mortem later gave the cause of death as 'traumatic brain and spinal cord injury.'

Jurors were told Sanders and Vaitkevicius had been drinking on the night Eva was attacked.

Tom Little, QC, prosecuting, said while Eva was being treated in hospital the mother was approached by a police officer.

Mr Little told how she said 'you're looking to prosecute me, and I am losing my child, we just having a drink to celebrate '.

He said: 'Nobody had suggested prosecuting her - and why would she say that she was to be prosecuted unless she knew far more than she was saying.

'Eva was, the prosecution say, violently shaken on at least three separate occasions. Three separate occasion in the early weeks of her very young life.

He said that the baby was shaken on 'different days' and that there is 'no viable alternative perpetrators'. 

Mr Little added: 'No one else living in the house who could have killed Eva. Nor are there any realistic, viable alternative explanation for Eva's death.

 Sanders' mobile phone was used to search 'Shaken baby syndrome NHS on 27 August, 2017, six days before Eva's death, the Old Bailey heard

'For example, this was no accident, this was a sustained series of assaults.

'A defenceless baby not able to talk, not able to say 'no', not able to say what had happened to her and not able to defend herself.

'At least one of these defendants must have repeatedly assaulted Eva.'

Messages exchanged between the pair, who had been together for a few years, allegedly show the relationship was tense.

Sanders was living with her Ukrainian lover in a flat on this road in Mitcham, South London

They revealed that the relationship was up and down, and they showed that she was struggling to cope while battling through a 'messy divorce,' prosecutors claim. 

Optimologist Dr Jo McPartlind, who examined Eva after her death, had previously told the court that the baby's injuries resembled those caused from falling off a multi-storey building.  

She was born on 2 August 2017 and was Sanders' first child. 

The trial continues.